1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to dental instruments. More particularly the invention concerns a hand-held instrument for use in manipulating a light-activated, cavity-filling compound.
2. Discussion of the Invention
Introduction
In filling certain types of dental cavities, a light activated filling composite or resin is used. In the past, this composite has been partially shaped and contoured by the dentist using the same instruments that are used in manipulating amalgam and like filling compounds. These instruments, called condensers, typically comprise an elongated body portion having hook-like tips at either end. The tips are of varying configurations each having differently shaped extremities including those that are bulb like in shape, frustoconical in shape and conical in shape. A complete set of instruments will typically include as many as five or six separate instruments having hook shaped extremities at either end.
The light-activated filling material, which is commercially available from several sources, remains pliable until it is exposed to a source of bright light. The bright light acts upon the activator in the composite causing it to rapidly set-up. Desirably set-up should by quite rapid and should not take place until the dentist has positioned the filling compound in precisely the correct position within the cavity. When the filling composite is correctly formed and positioned, the dentist activates the activator using a source of bright light which is inserted into the patients mouth.
In accomplishing the filling operation, the composite is usually built-up in layers with each layer being sequentially activated using a suitable source of light. Curing light apparatus is commercially available from various sources including IDE Interstate of New York, N.Y. Typical prior art curing lights comprise a body portion having a hand grip, a source of light housed within the body portion and an optical fiber, or tubular plastic, light guide extending from the forward end of the body portion.
The prior art cavity filling techniques described in the preceding paragraphs have several drawbacks. In the first place, the use of a separate, hand-held light source to activate the filling compound activator is cumbersome and time consuming. Additionally, because of the rather large size of the light guide, it is sometimes difficult to precisely focus the light beam on the filling compound. Further, when the light source is first inserted into the patients mouth, the stray light therefrom starts to prematurely act on the activator causing the filling to undesirably shrink away from the material supports used in forming or molding the filling. This, in turn, causes undesirable spacing between the filling and adjacent teeth.
As will be better appreciated from the discussion which follows, the apparatus of the present invention overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art techniques by constructing the condenser tips from a suitable plastic or glass fiber-optic material so that the tip itself can be used to accomplish the dual function of packing and shaping the filling and, as desired, simultaneously exposing the compound to a small beam of activating light. The unique configurement of the device thusly permits continued manipulation of the filling compound with the condenser tip at the same time the filling compound is curing as a result of being exposed to light.
In another form of the invention, one of the condenser tips is provided with unique suction means for releasably gripping either a dental inlay or a thin dental overlay such as a porcelain veneer of the character that can be bonded to the face of a tooth using a light activated adhesive material. Such veneers are extremely difficult to handle and emplace over the tooth using prior art techniques.